Obesity Blog

Summer, a period that involves lighter clothing and greater body exposure, along with the pressure to acquire a ‘bikini body’, can seriously reinforce issues such as eating disorders and negative body image. If you are faced with such a challenge, it is really important to prepare accordingly and support yourself during this period.
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We are all influenced by our parents' patterns of thinking and behaving. Likewise, the family environment you grow up in may, in different ways, encourage the development of Binge Eating Disorder later in life. Eating for emotional reasons, which is a fundamental characteristic of BED, can be picked up on and assumed by children, when they observe their parents or other family members engaging in this behaviour -even more so when food is explicitly used as a reward or punishment toward the children themselves. Continue Reading

Just like in other forms of disordered eating, overeating develops as a coping mechanism; a way for people to deal with painful or challenging emotions or situations in their lives, or to satisfy fundamental, unmet needs. However, even though this behaviour can provide momentary relief and escape from intolerable situations, it also triggers negative, self-deprecating feelings, which lead to further episodes of overeating, thus perpetuating a vicious circle of emotional turmoil. Continue Reading

Mindfulness is one of the most useful and effective tools that people affected by disordered eating can employ to deal with the challenging holiday period. This involves becoming aware of your moment-to-moment experience, without judging it or trying to change it in any way, but by relating to it with an attitude of compassion and curiosity. Continue Reading

How can therapy help eating disorders’ clients learn to healthily and effectively deal with their emotions?
First and foremost, the individual who has developed such rigid and negative attitudes towards emotions and their expression needs to be given explicit permission to feel; to be encouraged to allow their inner experience to be revealed and openly shared in an environment free of judgment and filled with respect. In order for this to happen, it is important for the client to be assisted in recognizing, challenging and eventually eliminating the unhelpful beliefs about themselves, and their needs and emotions that cause them to neglect their feelings in the first place.
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One of the most important realisations that I reached, from the very early days of my involvement in the therapy and healing world, was that, in our culture, we are never taught how to deal with our emotions. As we grow up, we are encouraged to become good children, good students, good professionals, and we are shown very specific ways to achieve those states, but no one ever tells us what to do with those very intimate, particularly powerful and potentially overwhelming signals from our body, mind and heart. Continue Reading